Interviews

Glenn Beck on Illegal Immigration Chaos, Run-in With TIME's Joe Klein

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," May 7, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "At Your Beck and Call" segment tonight: the Arizona illegal alien law and our pal Glenn confronting a man who called him seditious. Roll the tape.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'REILLY: All right. Here's Beck, and we've been doing a lot of reporting on the Arizona illegal alien law. You know the controversy. And earlier this week, we had Charles Krauthammer on who got a lot of people angry when he said this. Roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I would begin legalization for every illegal immigrant in the United States. You are not going to take 10 million people, many of whom have been here for many years, good actors, they have not broken the law, they work hard. I'm not going to put them on buses and deport them.

GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: First of all, shut the water off. I don't even — I don't even want to talk about what we're going to do with people until we shut the water off.

O'REILLY: Well, he said that. Krauthammer, to be fair, he said we're not going to do anything until we secure the border.

BECK: Right.

O'REILLY: But absolutely…

BECK: I don't think that, you know, Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly are going to solve, you know, what it would take to deport people.

O'REILLY: But would you be in favor of even trying to deport people?

BECK: Nothing is off the table. Nothing is off the table.

O'REILLY: Do you agree with Krauthammer then?

BECK: That what?

O'REILLY: That he would, if the border were secured, allow a pathway for citizenship for the people here if they are law-abiding?

BECK: Excuse me. There's no pathway. You would be — I would see a system to where you are documented. We give you...

O'REILLY: Working papers.

BECK: ...working papers so we know who you are. That has to be done. Absolutely. A citizenship — a pathway to citizenship, yes, it's called the front door. It's back there. Get at the back of the line. People have been waiting for four years. Now, that doesn't mean that I deport you. I don't know. May, may not. You know what, Bill?

O'REILLY: But there has to be some kind of rules for the road here when you're dealing with 12 million people.

BECK: Absolutely. It doesn't seem reasonable that we can take 12 million people and bus them out.

O'REILLY: Right.

BECK: I do think that a lot of people found their own way here. They can find their own way back.

O'REILLY: But they don't want to. Why would you? Why would you want to go back to Tegucigalpa if you're in Los Angeles?

BECK: Criminal activity. But I will tell you this. I am going to round up all those companies that are hiring. If we put a system in where we say you have to have document, we're sealing the border off, we're stopping all this nonsense...

O'REILLY: That's in the bill. You've got to have those...

BECK: Great.

O'REILLY: ...metric IDs. And if you don't have them, you don't work. You don't like the IDs, I know. But look...

BECK: Have you ever read — there's a...

O'REILLY: You've got to compromise on this issue if you want any kind of control.

BECK: Believe me, I'm willing to compromise. I am not going to give — I am not going to give anyone a pass to get in front of the people who have been doing it right. Absolutely not.

O'REILLY: OK. Beck hung with the swells earlier this week. He was at the TIME 100 People of the Year, or the 100 Most Important, or 100 Best Haircuts. Whatever they're doing, you were on the list.

O'REILLY: Remember, this is TIME magazine. Let's roll the tape on the red carpet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELTON JOHN, MUSICIAN: What can I tell you? It's a nice compliment. And I don't read too much into it, but it's a very nice compliment. And it's nice to be at an event where you meet some unusual people like Sarah Palin.

O'REILLY: But if you started humming his songs — you and I should sing "Crocodile Rock."

BECK: No, no. I will leave that up to you, Bill.

O'REILLY: All right. Now, anybody impress you at the TIME 100? Were you — were you star struck?

BECK: No. Star struck? No. I thought the guys at "Saturday Night Live" were very funny. Lorne Michaels was very nice.

O'REILLY: I heard you had a run-in with our pal Joe Klein.

BECK: He came up to me, and you know, he's about 3 feet tall. He had a stepladder. And he gets on the stepladder, and he...

O'REILLY: Stop it. Beck, come on.

BECK: So he comes up and he, you know how people kind of uncomfortably just kind of insert themselves into a circle of conversation? And I didn't know who he was.

O'REILLY: You didn't know who he was?

BECK: I couldn't remember. I knew his face. And I'm like...

O'REILLY: You whacked him like eight hours.

BECK: I knew the face, and I'm like, "Hey." And the guy I'm talking to says, "Oh, it's Joe Klein." And the guys — I guess we were talking to — I guess he thought he was going to make me uncomfortable. He said, "Oh, you should get your pipe out and do your professor thing." And I just looked right at Joe, and I said, "Any time."

O'REILLY: A throw down.

BECK: Then he got his finger in my face.

O'REILLY: He did?

BECK: Yes, he got his finger right in the face. I backed up a little bit. He wouldn't take it out of my face.

O'REILLY: What was he complaining about?

BECK: He was complaining about — I don't even know. I wasn't even really listening. He was complaining just about, you know, that I — you know, make stuff up and everything else.

O'REILLY: He was doing that at the social event?

BECK: It was really bad.

O'REILLY: Really?

BECK: Really bad.

O'REILLY: Wow.

BECK: Really bad.

O'REILLY: See, if I were there, I would — that wouldn't have happened. He wouldn't have done that, because I'm like a bouncer kind of guy.

BECK: That's why I kept myself at the table.

O'REILLY: I wouldn't have permitted that.

BECK: You know, I wanted to say to him, "You're at a black tie event. Relax."

O'REILLY: OK. Father's Day coming up, and Beck and I, as you may know, are going to be in Columbus, Ohio, in St. Louis for Father's Day weekend. Bill O'Reilly "Bold Fresh Tour" and the Glenn Beck "Bold Fresh Tour." Now, I'm getting a lot of mail saying, "Gee, thanks, we're buying tickets for dad, and we know you'll be great, but we're not sure about Beck."

BECK: You know what's funny? Is it's the opposite. It's weird.

O'REILLY: So we want people to check out BoldFreshTour.com. Get those tickets, Columbus and St. Louis.

Final question for you. This oil slick. Does this worry you?

BECK: It should worry everybody.

O'REILLY: Because what I'm asking is you have that concrete bunker. Oil can't penetrate that. It can't get through. You're safe.

BECK: You know, when he — when he's pulling up to the gas station with $50-a-gallon gasoline and he's like "I don't know what to do. I only make $400 billion."